Refuge-GAP: A GAP Decision Support System for Refuge Planning
Margo Herdendorf1 and Patrick Crist2
1 Spatial Data and Visualization Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie
2 National Gap Analysis Program, Moscow, Idaho
The Gap Analysis Program (GAP) began as a small research project in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and spread nearly nationwide by the time it became a program of the U.S. Geological Survey. The initial intent of GAP was to provide the FWS and others with information on the status of biodiversity elements so that the network of conservation lands, including the National Refuge System, could better maintain the nation’s biological heritage. While the program’s breadth has expanded, our original commitment to the FWS has not changed. The National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act (U.S. 1997) contained language that called on the FWS to "strengthen the conservation of biological diversity throughout the Refuge System." A recent workshop on implementing the new refuge act identified Gap Analysis as a primary means to "identify how the Refuge System contributes to biodiversity conservation compared to other federal lands" (Defenders of Wildlife 1998). The accompanying article "Decision Support Systems: New Tools for Data Users" identifies some impediments to easily incorporating GAP data into these types of decision-making processes. In response to this problem, GAP teamed with the University of Wyoming’s Spatial Data Visualization Center and FWS to address this need. The result is a decision support system called "Refuge-GAP" (www.sdvc.uwyo.edu/wbn/refuge) that uses Wyoming GAP and other biological data in a desktop GIS environment (ArcView) to assist FWS managers in meeting requirements of the new legislation.
National Wildlife Refuges are a critical component of the nation’s network of preserves for wildlife and biodiversity. In managing the refuges, the FWS is also responsible for identifying additional critical areas in need of protection under the refuge system. These can come as additions to existing refuges or new refuges. The biodiversity data sets produced by Gap Analysis, in conjunction with the powerful analytical capabilities of GIS, provide the FWS with an objective tool for identifying parcels of land which meet initial criteria for protection.
The decision support tool is designed to mirror the FWS’s Land Acquisition Priority System (LAPS) for significant community biodiversity targets. This is a four-step process that ranks lands for acquisition according to: a) degree of alteration, b) significance to biodiversity protection, c) management considerations (land use), and d) species of concern. Refuge-GAP prompts the user to assign ranks to each of these variables; then the user is taken through a series of menus which display data that are available as input variables, and it prompts the user for the input of weights for each of the variables (Figure 1). Once all the variables have been weighted, they are combined in a GIS analytical process, and the result is a map depicting areas ranked for importance to the National Wildlife Refuge system.
 Figure 1. Interactive menu for the Land Aquisition Priority System component of Refuge-GAP. |
The decision support tool is also designed to report on biodiversity elements for specific areas. This project-specific component of the tool allows a regional FWS office to more efficiently review permit applications for various development and management activities. The user inputs the location of the permit application into the decision tool, which then summarizes the number of elements (vertebrate species, land cover types) known or predicted to occur within a specified radius (Figure 2).
 Figure 2. The system user can identify locations to be analyzed for biotic occurrence and conservation status. |
The tool also provides users with the capability to summarize and view elements by rank, such as state species of concern or identified as conservation gaps (Figure 3). In addition to increasing the efficiency of a review process, the tool can also contribute to cumulative impact analysis at a regional level. The location of each permit review can be recorded into a spatial database along with the results of the review. This database can then be summarized to assess cumulative impacts as well as contribute to the land acquisition prioritization process. This capability may someday lead to "geographic policy analysis."
 Figure 3. Results of elements coinciding with the area of analysis are reported with the status rankings. |
Refuge GAP was developed in a few months with only $3,200 and was envisioned as a starting point to demonstrate both the utility of GAP and the technology to aid the FWS in its mission. From here, we will distribute the system to those in FWS interested in evaluating it. Our hope is to team with FWS in development of a robust system that incorporates rangewide distribution and status data on biotic elements and can be easily implemented and maintained by the FWS.
